Returning for a second encore production in January 2015, "The Waffle Palace" is a hilarious comedy about a place where everyone is welcome and the only unforgivable sins are ordering pancakes and over-tipping.

"The Waffle Palace" has all the characteristics of the last waffle that was served to me at the Waffle House – pale, underdone, and gooey in the center. The plot is the thinnest of concepts, and the characters populating it are constructed of the flimsiest cardboard, often acting as one-note gags. I found next to nothing to keep my interest in the first act. Lots of positive reactions come from the audience at the cheap attempts at audience involvement and the clichés of Waffle House operation and clientele, but they are unrelated to any deep involvement in the show.

Things perk up in the second act when the devil arrives and the plot goes into overdrive. The elements that work best are those that contain a zaniness of their own, unrelated to (or only marginally suggested by) any real-life events. Even then, there are as many misses as hits.

Having most of the cast play multiple characters doesn’t work particularly well. Actor exits are blatantly written into the script in order to allow them to re-enter as another character. Costuming (by Moriah & Isabel Curley-Clay) aids the actors in distinguishing their multiple characters, but several seem to blend together. The script seems actually to ask more of the scenery (by Moriah & Isabel Curley-Clay) and the lighting (by Mary Parker) than it does of the actors. Most of the effects work well, except for a jukebox whose controls remain lit when a power outage supposedly occurs. That could easily have been avoided by cardboard strips masking the controls. Thom Jenkins’ sound design seemed to work just fine without the jukebox supplying the (frequent) music.

Lisa Adler’s director’s notes in the program make the point that "The Waffle Palace" was commissioned as part of Horizon’s New South Play Festival. Well, it’s not that new anymore. Like any other show at Horizon, though, "The Waffle Palace" will keep coming back as long as it pulls in the crowds and makes money. The safe and the tried-and-true are reigning supreme at Horizon, with "fresh and provocative stories by today’s playwrights" now seemingly an afterthought in its programming. [POST A COMMENT REGARDING THIS REVIEW]